Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

I really should read my own blog.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

He really is that stupid.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

No Justins, No Peace

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

Second rate reporter says what?

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Accountability, motherfuckers.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

You are here: Home / Guest Posts / Medium Cool with BGinCHI – New Westerns

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – New Westerns

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In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.  We’re here at 7 pm on Sunday nights.

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – New Westerns
Image is from the Vanity Fair article about The Power of the Dog

In the last week I’ve seen two new Westerns that have given me a lot to think about. In this week’s Medium Cool, let’s talk about The Western, updated.

Both “Old Henry” (2021, dir. Potsy Ponciroli) and “The Power of the Dog” (2021, dir. Jane Campion) are set in the 20th century (1906 and 1925, respectively). Both feature older men struggling with the past, as well as young men who struggle with the future. Both films are consciously placed in this transitional time period, with one way of life giving way to another.

What other Westerns do this? How is the genre a fertile form for exploring historical change? There’s a lot of room here to talk about films/books/TV series that aren’t, strictly speaking, Westerns, but make use of similar forms and ways of storytelling.

Reader Interactions

204Comments

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    I have to mention the obvious Firefly/Serenity as space Westerns. Otherwise I wasn’t aware the Western genre was returning to cinema. My lack of understanding of where the culture is I guess.

  3. 3.

    BGinCHI

    I’d also be interested in any Westerns anyone can think of that are set in the 20th century.

    There’s The Shootist (1901), and the framing sections of Little Big Man. The end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? It starts in 1899, but not sure what year it ends….

  4. 4.

    BGinCHI

    @Yutsano: Firefly getting a re-boot, yes? By Disney?

    The original show was good and it’s hard to believe it didn’t run 10 seasons. Mandalorian is kind of picking up where it left off….

  5. 5.

    Yutsano

    @BGinCHI: Dammit! I knew I was forgetting something! As soon as I got caught up on The Expanse next was Mandalorian. Annnd I got sucked down a Star Trek rabbit hole. I’ll start making up for that later tonight.

  6. 6.

    billcinsd

    @BGinCHI: The original show was a little too Neo-Confederate for my taste. Well, that is more my generic critique of many Westerns but ymmv

  7. 7.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    @BGinCHI:  I’d also be interested in any Westerns anyone can think of that are set in the 20th century.

    “A River Runs Through It”. 1992 directed by Robert Redford

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @BGinCHI: No Country for Old Men and Hell or High Water are both 20th century westerns.

    ETA: NCfOM occurs in the 1980s iirc. HoHW a little later.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    A few Westerns which nominally or obliquely fit the parameters.

    Film:
    Cimarron
    Destry Rides Again
    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
    A Big Hand for the Little Lady
    The Naked Spur
    7 Men From Now
    The Grey Fox
    Comes A Horseman
    Chato’s Land
    The Tall T
    Buck and the Preacher
    Will Penny
    .

    TV (Australian):
    Wild Boys
    .

  12. 12.

    debbie

    I really, really liked News of the World. I don’t know how many Westerns I’ve seen, but the absolute blackness of the nights and the many lurking dangers made me pretty anxious for the first time.

  14. 14.

    BGinCHI

    @Grumpy Old Railroader:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I should have been more specific. I mean Westerns set in the early 20th C. that are explicitly about the changes overtaking a previous way of life (advent of the auto, plowing with a tractor, etc.).

    But yeah, I also love the neo-Westerns you name. Great films all.

  15. 15.

    Yutsano

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s set in the 1960s so yes. I was warned that movie was going to make me a blubbery mess. I was actually fine…until the last line. That movie was so ripped off for Best Picture.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    @BGinCHI

    Everyone I knew at the time went absolutely ga-ga over it. I thought it was just okay. Watchable enough but wildly inconsistent and trite (figured out the ‘secret’ of the Reavers very early on), with plot holes a blind novice could pilot a star destroyer through.

  22. 22.

    TiredOfItAll

    What is a Western, anyway? Do there have to be cowboys? Or guns? This year I read a trilogy of novels by Kent Haruf, “Plainsong,” “Eventide,” and “Benediction.” All set in the late 20th century in and around the fictional town of Holt, in eastern Colorado. The first one centers on two old bachelor brothers, the McPherons, cattle farmers who take in a young girl in trouble. The novels are lovely and lyrical, and sad, like much of life these days. Well, the sad part anyway. And, yet, I found them to be a safe place to hide out for awhile during this blasted plague.

  25. 25.

    Dan B

    @Dan B: ‘Crash’ won Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain.  There was a great deal of criticism about how Brokeback was only nominated for writing.

  27. 27.

    eddie blake

    i mean, it takes place during the 1880’s, but eastwood’s the unforgiven is all about people struggling with the passage of time, changing roles, modernization, maturity, self-knowledge, and i think, the acceptance of obsolescence.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @BGinCHI: the early 20th C. that are explicitly about the changes overtaking a previous way of life

    Well, other than not fitting your early 20th century timeline, both NCfOM (the drug wars and the struggles wrought by them) and HoHW (banks and the fiscal powers they had accrued) dealt with “changes overtaking a previous way of life”.

    I think that conflict lies at the center of most westerns.

    One that has been in my mind of late is Hombre. A great Paul Newman western* that occurs in the 1880s/1890s but deals with those exact issues.

    * original novel written by Elmore Leonard, who wrote a number of exceptional westerns, quite a few of which ended up on the silver screen.

  29. 29.

    Larch

    20th century Western: Longmire TV rather than movie, but does explore the past/future collision in a number of ways

    A lot of “space opera” science fiction is either Westerns or war movies in space, often both. I used to think the Earth 2 TV show would have gotten better ratings if it has been marketed as Wagon Train In the stars — at least until its progressively more bizarre final season.

  30. 30.

    raven

    Lonely Are the Brave

    Jeremiah Johnson

    It really helps to get the Blu Ray of Jeremiah and listen to the commentary by Redford, Pollock and Milius. Also, the theme song is sung by Tim McIntire   

    who played Alan Freed in American Hot Wax,

  33. 33.

    BGinCHI

    @TiredOfItAll: That’s a good question. The genre definition of a Western includes just what you’d think from John Ford/John Wayne, etc.

    But I’m also interested in “frontier” narratives, which is a big part of any Western: liminal spaces, lack of law/justice, and so on. Willa Cather’s books even have this quality, as people are out on the western edge of the country (white people country).

  34. 34.

    Heidi Mom

    @Dan B: I just checked Wikipedia–it won Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Score.  Which does not mean that it shouldn’t have won Best Picture as well.

  36. 36.

    phein62

    @NotMax:   Will Penny is a very good movie, and also a reminder that Charlton Heston had some acting chops when it suited him.   He was also good in another Western with transitional overtones — the replacement of land barons with corporate actors — , The Big Country, for which Burl Ives won Best Supporting Actor.

    Westerns are by their nature paeans to a liminal state, the frontier period, with one wave of change crashing into another.

  37. 37.

    raven

    Heartland with Rip Torn and Conchata Ferrell is really good as is Tom Horn, Steve McQueen’s second to last film.

  39. 39.

    NotMax

    @BGinCHI

    I’m also interested in “frontier” narratives

    While it may not meet the strictures of a Western, will mention the book The Fatal Shore.

  41. 41.

    Heidi Mom

    Early in Seabiscuit there are scenes in which the old cowboy who becomes the horse’s trainer watches as the prairie disappears and he searches for a way to adapt.

  42. 42.

    Dan B

    @BGinCHI: Speaking of John Wayne a native stuntman nicknamed Yakima Cannutt was the inspiration for John Wayne’s ‘cowboy’ act.  So the native culture of Eastern Washington got transferred to the Western stereotypical brand of slow talking machismo.  Yakima, who was from the Palouse, not Yakima, also developed many stunts add special, non-CGI, effects.  So movie culture was changing as Westerns were being made.

  44. 44.

    JPL

    The Power of the Dog does give one a lot to think about, but I found it lacking.  Phil is a damaged, sadistic character and the movie only hints at why.   I just think there is more to the story.

    btw Team Peter

  45. 45.

    raven

    I hate to pimp Eastwood but, along with The Unforgiven (the original is really good too with it’s examination of race), but Coogan’s Bluff is pretty wild. He’s a modern day sheriff who goes to the Big Apple chasing a murdered. His encounters in the big city are hilarious!

  46. 46.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @WaterGirl: That was me.  Great flick.  Stunning scenery.  Incredible performances by all the actors.  I even liked Cumberbatch for once (well, actually disliked, because he is the villain but played it well.)

  54. 54.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: And Frank Silvera!

     

    He was a highly successful black actor/director in the 1950s and 1960s who – because of his light-skinned appearance – transcended race and ethnicity in his performances. In motion pictures, Frank Silvera was cast as black, Latino, Polynesian and “white”/racially indeterminate (due to black + white film stock’s lack of discernment when rendering light-skinned African-Americans).

  56. 56.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    Deadwood was pretty good. The erasure of Native Americans and the US’ brutal policy of total unmitigated terrorism against them is a big problem with most Westerns, past and present.

  57. 57.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Godless.  One of the most amazing Westerns I’ve ever seen because while it revolves around the story of conflict between two men, Roy Good (a gunslinger played by Jack O’Connell) and his father figure, Frank Griffin (Jeff Bridges) being sought by Sherriff who is losing his vision (Bill McNue) the landscape is one where the women are strong, independent and don’t take shit from he men.  Michelle Dockery and Merritt Weaver play some of the most bad-ass women characters you will ever see.  I can see it as a story about aging, familial conflict and everyone trying to figure out a world where women are being empowered.  The great thing about it, like Queen’s Gambit, is that for the most part, the main male characters are pretty much fine with powerful women.  It’s probably my favorite Western after Deadwood, but for very different reasons.

  58. 58.

    raven

    @Hungry Joe:

    This exchange was pretty good too!

     

    • Audra Favor : I can’t imagine eating a dog and not thinking anything of it.

      John Russell : You even been hungry, lady? Not just ready for supper. Hungry enough so that your belly swells?

      Audra Favor : I wouldn’t care how hungry I got. I know I wouldn’t eat one of those camp dogs.

      John Russell : You’d eat it. You’d fight for the bones, too.

      Audra Favor : Have you ever eaten a dog, Mr. Russell?

      John Russell : Eaten one and lived like one.

      Audra Favor : Dear me.

  59. 59.

    Kent

    “Legends of the Fall” is set about the same time in the early 20th century before and after WW1.  I’m not sure if it qualifies as a traditional Western.

  62. 62.

    raven

    And don’t forget “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”. The Lady Got Rattled with Zoe Kazan is worth the price of admission.

  65. 65.

    schrodingers_cat

    There is a genre of Hindi movies inspired by westerns with an outlaw hero/s. Not exactly new but the 1975 movie Sholay (Embers) is a classic of this genre. It is an ensemble movie and rip roaring yarn. It was a career defining movie for the writers Salim-Javed and its director Ramesh Sippy. The who’s who of Hindi film industry of the 70s is in this movie. It ran for over 5 years in the theaters.

    A retired police officer hires two small time goons to get even with his nemesis, the fearsome Gabbar Singh,

  66. 66.

    Craig

    Slightly OT, but the eternal question. Rio Bravo, or El Dorado? I tend to go with Rio Bravo cause Ricky Nelson is damn perfect as slick gunfighter Colorado.

  68. 68.

    raven

    @NotMax: There are moments – when heavy footsteps and wagon sighs fill the endless, empty space of the Oregon outback – where Meek’s Cutoff exudes an existential aroma. This is a film that broods lengthily over the insubstantiality of mortality and faith. Like the last specks of gold dust along this lonesome trail, however, these moments are a false promise that something illuminating lies just beyond the next vale.

  69. 69.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    If made-for-TV movies count, Sam Elliott did a movie about Bill Tilghman, a famous lawman moving into old age, set in Prohibition-and-oil-boom Oklahoma, called You Know My Name that’s worth at least one viewing because hey—Sam Elliott.

  70. 70.

    James E Powell

    @Dan B:

    Crash is very widely regarded as one of the worst Best Pictures winners of all time. It was and remains an Academy Embarrassment.

  71. 71.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax:  Very good one. I haven’t thought much about Westerns lately, but last time I did I was noticing that the bulk of them were made in the 30s through 50s, just when it was becoming clear that much about that way of life was evanescent. To me they’ve always been about nostalgia and lamenting changing times and, considering who many of the Western settlers were, about refugees from the Lost Cause. Not that I don’t often enjoy them.

  73. 73.

    zhena gogolia

    Not my genre at all. Raven mentioned Heartland with Conchata Ferrell, and I remember liking it when it came out. Not much memory of it now.

    I just watched a bunch of clips from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, because I didn’t understand why a crossword puzzle had a clue that was something like, “Word for John Wayne,” and the answer was “pilgrim.” Now I guess I understand.

  75. 75.

    prostratedragon

    @schrodingers_cat:  The international trail of Westerns is an interesting subject on its own. For instance, I have the impression that Kurosawa was as much influenced by Westerns as he influenced the later ones. And of course there are Leone and other spaghetti Western makers. I’m sure it doesn’t stop there.

  79. 79.

    BGinCHI

    @OzarkHillbilly: It does. Great film. Watching The Power of the Dog, I couldn’t help but think how much better it would have been with Day-Lewis. Not fair to Cumberbatch, who’s terrific, but D D-L has the most gravity.

  85. 85.

    Travels with Charley

    Not sure a movie was ever made of this book, but I think jack Schaefer’s Monte Walsh captured the transition of the cowboy life beautifully.

  87. 87.

    Haydnseek

    The Wild Bunch immediately comes to mind.  Probably already mentioned, but a perfect example of men dealing with an impending new era that has no place for them.

  90. 90.

    El Cruzado

    Outside movies, Red Dead Redemption (the first one, the video game) is set in 1905 IIRC and plays a lot with those themes.

    As for Westerns I’ve seen that I haven’t seen mentioned above, “Hostiles” is technically set in 1892 but deals both with the changing times and the reckoning with what was done to the native tribes.

  93. 93.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @debbie:

    Loved News of the World. Also really loved the proper True Grit reboot (got back to the roots of the story as opposed to John Wayne strutting, Glenn Campbell smarminess of the 60s version).

  98. 98.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @raven:

    I love Coogan’s Bluff – it was super funny, and had that great foil of an NYOD lieutenant.

    As I recall, it was so popular they decided to produce McCloud.

  99. 99.

    James E Powell

    As it happens, I watched The Power of the Dog & Old Henry back to back last night.

    I was just in the mood.

    Western films I saw growing up are filled with all kinds of embarrassing & outrageous white supremacist bullshit. But I watched them anyway. I guess it’s because those of us born in the mid-50s were kind of raised on them. You go back to the first half of the 60s and there seemed to be at least one western show on every night. And on Saturday & Sunday mornings they showed re-runs of Bat Masterson, Have Gun Will Travel, Sugarfoot, The Rebel, Casey Jones, and – my favorite – Maverick.

  100. 100.

    NotMax

    Random aside:

    There’s any number of more atrocious spaghetti Westerns, but if you want to see an actor totally out of his element, check out Joseph Cotten in The Hellbenders. Currently streaming on Kanopy and on FlixFling.

    ;)

  101. 101.

    Nutmeg again

    Anybody else for 3:10 to Yuma?  Not a space western, just a western-western. I liked it, anyway. (NB., OK, so it was 2007…

    eta Space western, was that one with Daniel Craig. Aliens in the wild west.

  102. 102.

    Larch

    @artem1s: Ah, right! I knew the phrase was familiar but had forgotten that story. Personally, I think the description fits Earth 2 better, since that was actually about aspiring settlers, but it’s quite possible Roddenberry envisioned something a bit different for Star Trek from the show that actually resulted.  YMMV.

    WRT Earth 2, I was struck by how badly it was marketed so it kind of stuck with me.

  103. 103.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @BGinCHI:

    Richard Brooks’s The Professionals (1966) is set sometime in the Mexican Revolution, so 1910-20. All-star cast, gorgeous cinematography by Conrad Hall—well worth watching. It shows up on TCM occasionally.

  105. 105.

    billcinsd

    @BGinCHI: Firefly: Post-Civil War; Lost Cause mythology; Evil Central Government telling the little guy what to do; Evil minority analogues. The only thing not neo-Confederate was the lack of slavery.

    While I liked Firefly at the time, it is definitely an homage to the 1930s Westerns that were big on Dunning School interpretations of the Civil War and Reconstruction

  111. 111.

    eddie blake

    yojimbo and the seven samurai are both ur-westerns and are both about people trying to find their place in a world that is changing under their feet

    eta- but yeah, pretty far from the early 20th century.

  116. 116.

    James E Powell

    @billcinsd:

    Most everybody reads Firefly that way, but I thought of it more as what things would be like for Han Solo if the Empire struck back & won.

  117. 117.

    pajaro

    Days of Heaven, with Richard Gere, Sam Shepard and Brooke Adams is set in the early 20th Century, I believe.  It’s directed by Terance Malik and is visually stunning, although I’m petty hard pressed to give a plot summary.

  118. 118.

    Stephanie Luke

    @JPL: There were many things not to like about “The Power of the Dog”, even though I wanted desperately to like it because Cumberbach is one of my favorite actors. Set in Montana and filmed in New Zealand about Americans when Phil, one of the principal actors, is played by a Brit. A family of cattle ranchers where half (the parents) don’t live on the ranch. Lots of cowboys and no bunk house. Many details of riding and working cattle that were just plain wrong, which wouldn’t matter, but there is no excuse not to hire some technical experts, is there?  The character motivations got lost in the “art” of the filming and the (I assume) final editing. I guess if you read the book it is based on, it would have been more accessible, but I haven’t, so that’s my fault.

  122. 122.

    way2blue

    I just finished watching ‘The Power of the Dog’.  Watching a Brit cowboy produced by a Kiwi company…  Complex non-traditional story with some very subtle plot twists that I’m not sure I grasped.  Probably need to read the book…

  123. 123.

    eddie blake

    @Cameron:  ahh. kathryn bigelow’s best movie next to strange days.

    good shit. the vampire movie that never says the word “vampire”.

  128. 128.

    Gin & Tonic

    @pajaro: It’s Terrence Malick. Days of Heaven was his second film after Badlands, one of my personal favorites, which was set in the West, but decidedly not a Western – it was based on the Starkweather-Fugate spree killers of the 1950’s.

  129. 129.

    Almost Retired

    Fascinating thread.  I wonder if there are silent movies from the late teens or twenties that addressed that transition contemporaneously – to appeal to people who remember the frontier before it closed?  The silent cinema was far more sophisticated in theme and nuanced in substance than we appreciate today, since we can’t get past the acting style.  I can’t imagine no one made a sentimental post-frontier Western?

  132. 132.

    Amir Khalid

    Two by Gore Verblinski: the animated Rango and The Lone Ranger, a sadly underrated movie with Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp. The former is a classic Western with animal characters and more than a faint whiff of spaghetti about it. The latter is an unsparing look at the lies, betrayal, and corruption that went into the winning of the West, and at the Lone Ranger mythos’ own part in whitewashing that sordid history. It blew up the movie franchise that Disney intended it to kick off, and Verblinski paid for that with his career.  It’s an unexpectedly challenging film, hence its very mixed critical and audience reaction.

  140. 140.

    BGinCHI

    @Amir Khalid: ​
      I can’t BELIEVE I forgot about Rango when I put this together!
    One of my absolute favorite films. So smart, so re-watchable. Depp’s best performance.

  142. 142.

    frosty

    Australian: The Man From Snowy River. Kirk Douglas again. It’s been a long time since I saw it so I don’t know if it meets the thread criteria. Nevertheless it has one of the most awesome scenes of horsemanship ever put onscreen.

  143. 143.

    Kalakal

    McCabe & Mrs Miller 1902 one of my favourites

    regarding space westerns Outland is pretty much a remake of High Noon

  144. 144.

    BGinCHI

    @frosty: Another great Aussie “Western” is The Proposition.

    With the underrated Danny Huston and a fab cast.

    ETA: Script & music by Nick Cave!

  145. 145.

    Benw

    Both feature older men struggling with the past, as well as young men who struggle with the future. Both films are consciously placed in this transitional time period, with one way of life giving way to another.

    Here’s a crazy thought: The Big Lebowski is a 20th century western. Sam Peckinpaw says yes.

  149. 149.

    mrmoshpotato

    @BGinCHI:

    Another great Aussie “Western” is The Proposition. 

    Fuck yes, mate.  Fuck yes.  Saw that the Music Box back in ’05.

  150. 150.

    Kalakal

    It’s another Aussie one and in many ways is its own thing but Walkabout has a lot of western elements. cultural collision and incomprehension, survival in a brutal environment etc. Nicholas Roeg made the Outback into one of the main characters

  152. 152.

    Craig

    @Kalakal: watched Outland again a couple weeks ago. Not as great as I remembered, but still really good. Great supporting cast; pre Hill Street James B Sikking, Frances Sternhagen, John Ratzenberger, PH Moriarty longbefore Hatchet Harry in Lock Stock…, and a young as hell Clarke Peters way before The Wire. Brilliant role for Peter Boyle. Early middle aged Sean Connery finding his way.

  153. 153.

    Brachiator

    Both “Old Henry” (2021, dir. Potsy Ponciroli) and “The Power of the Dog” (2021, dir. Jane Campion) are set in the 20th century (1906 and 1925, respectively). Both feature older men struggling with the past, as well as young men who struggle with the future.

    Sorry I missed most of the discussion here. I will try to see both these films, but my first thought was why they were not about women dealing with change? Do these films at least have any substantial roles for women characters?

    Also one of many films that comes to mind that is a kind of western about transitions is The Last Picture Show.

     

    ETA. Really like Jane Campion as a director.

  154. 154.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    it’s so long ago that I watched it that my recollections are fuzzy, and so I hesitate to propose it, but Bad Day at Black Rock? very much set in the post-war western US, as I recall. A new kind of law man coming into a town with secrets?

  155. 155.

    BGinCHI

    @Brachiator: Power of the Dog features a female main character, and yes, she deals with a lot of shit.

    “Old Henry” has nary a woman in its entirety…..

  158. 158.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    it’s so long ago that I watched it that my recollections are fuzzy, and so I hesitate to propose it, but Bad Day at Black Rock? very much set in the post-war western US, as I recall. A new kind of law man coming into a town with secrets? 

    Sounds right from what I remember.

  161. 161.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    The former is a classic Western with animal characters and more than a faint whiff of spaghetti about it. The latter is an unsparing look at the lies, betrayal, and corruption that went into the winning of the West, and at the Lone Ranger mythos’ own part in whitewashing that sordid history.

    I hate this remake of The Lone Ranger with every fiber of my being. The original radio series and later TV show were never intended to be anything more than lightweight amusement for kids, so to freight it down with the burden of history is pointless and rightfully confused and repelled the audience. The movie was never coherent. In early drafts it was about vampires. Johnny Depp’s self-indulgent performance upstages Hammer, but is wrong in so many ways that it negates the entire movie. Worse, I agree that it tries to redress history, but it still has to shoe in conventional heroic action, so the whole mess collapses on itself. Also I recall that most of the action takes place on a single, expensively constructed rail spur, which is boring as hell and poorly directed.

    Lone Ranger remakes have had an unfortunate history. The 1981 Legend of the Lone Ranger was dull and forgettable. And the lead actor playing the Ranger was so bad that his dialog was redone by Stacy Keach. Didn’t help.

  163. 163.

    joel hanes

    @TiredOfItAll: ​
     

    I thought Haruf’s Plainsong was one of the best books I read in 2020.

    But as a midwesterner, born and bred in Iowa, that opinion was probably overdetermined.

  169. 169.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Scrolling through the thread, has no one mentioned Yellowstone? I watched the first episode, and I found it interesting, but wasn’t compelled to continue. Maybe I will as winter grows long, but a lot of people I know loved it, it was one that at least half a dozen people I know quarantine-binged.

  172. 172.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @mrmoshpotato:

    A pointless journey against incredible odds, with heroes of dubious morality seeking redemption far away from the organs of civilization.

  173. 173.

    Cameron

    @mrmoshpotato: Near Dark: doesn’t the hero – in an age of motor vehicles – ride off on horseback to save the lady in distress?  How much more western do you need?

  174. 174.

    Cameron

    @Benw: I though Lebowski was more of a noir spoof – innocent guy dragged unsuspectingly into sinister intrigue.  Y’all wouldn’t have a white russian handy, would you?

  175. 175.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Brachiator:

    Remaking things in order to assuage the appetites of boomers for halcyon-shaded  nostalgia is a fool’s errand. They will always be grumpy about the effort because the original concepts, plot lines, characterizations and dialogue didn’t age well and have to be revised.

  178. 178.

    patrick II

    It is not a movie, but there was a TV show called “Nichols” that was set in 1914.  James Garner played a sheriff in a small Arizona town that looked similar to a normal western — except Nichols rode a motorcycle.  I enjoyed the show and found the time period interesting — but the show only lasted one year.

  181. 181.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:

    Would the presumably more kid-friendly Lone Ranger that Disney wanted really have been a better movie? Would the original concept still have worked for audiences in the 2010s? I have my doubts on that.

  182. 182.

    oatler

    Zachariah the “electric western” begins with the James Gang playing “Laguna Salada” with modern guitars and amps.

  183. 183.

    justawriter

    Very late to this thread but someone must mention the wonderful The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.

  184. 184.

    billcinsd

    I nearly forgot to add The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. — definitely a Western, although checking I see it was set in 1893

  186. 186.

    Amir Khalid

    Does anyone here remember a TV western about a pair of bounty hunters, a black Union veteran and a white former Confederate officer? I’m trying to remember the name of the show.

  187. 187.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    Would the presumably more kid-friendly Lone Ranger that Disney wanted really have been a better movie? Would the original concept still have worked for audiences in the 2010s? I have my doubts on that.

    Hollywood often simply uses the name of something as a brand. And there will be more of this because the studios don’t know how to get people back into the theaters and are hoping that a flood of sequels, retreads, remakes and recycled works will lure people with stuff they once liked and are familiar with.

    I lack much of a nostalgia gene. So I wasn’t much looking to reproduce my childhood when I went to see the Lone Ranger. I went to see it because I liked Johnny Depp and could not believe that the movie was as bad as audiences and critics said it was.

    It was worse.

    Obviously, Disney got lucky with Pirates of the Caribbean, a movie that was more fun than anyone expected. But there was no prior narrative behind that film, just a dumb little Disneyland ride.

    There have been far better revisionist westerns. Little Big Man or even Quigley Down Under.

    I loved the Lone Ranger as a kid. But I outgrew it. I also had relatives who lived on a ranch. I grew up in Texas and have a good grasp of history in all its complexity. So the old west is not just stories for me.

    But I suspect that you may be right that contemporary audiences are too far removed from any connection to the old west or even stories about the old west. But they also don’t go to the movies for an ugly and largely incoherent history lesson disguised as an action adventure film.

    By contrast, Django Unchained had deeper historical references than I had expected. But even here some Tarantino fans were unhappy that they didn’t get an empty but masterful hipster movie with lots of quotable dialog. They also wanted more white boy heroes doing white boy heroic stuff.

  190. 190.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    The Outcasts

    A Confederate officer, who is now a bounty hunter, teams up with an ex-slave in the 1860s.

    Don Murray and Otis Young. Pretty good series.

    An interesting revision of western TV shows and movies which had a protagonist who had fought for the Confederacy.

  191. 191.

    prostratedragon

    Buffalo Bill, Wyatt Earp, and Annie Oakley all lived well into the 20th century and knew movie people.

  192. 192.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    More on The Outcasts

    From the show synopsis:

    “Jemal David and Earl Corey. One black, one white; one ex-Union soldier, one ex-Confederate officer; one ex-slave, one ex-slave owner. Together, they are the Outcasts.”

    The show didn’t last very long.

    The show was criticized for “excessive violence”, and was canceled after 26 episodes.

    I really don’t recall the show being all that violent. And I liked the chemistry between the two leads.

    I also liked the tension between the two characters, but TV audiences generally want to see the protagonists get along with each other.

    ETA. And the series was set in the 1870s, not 1860s.

  196. 196.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Remember Alias Smith and Jones?

    Yep. It was a pleasantly ramshackle series. Looking it up on Wikipedia, I did not know that one of the leads, Pete Duel committed suicide, but ABC network execs insisted that the series continue.

  198. 198.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @Jack Canuck: I rented that when it came out and I had to turn it off because of the rape scene.  it was utterly disgusting. I can’t think of any other film I ever rented and declined to finish.

    I found it unsurprising when Bigelow endorsed torture in “Zero Dark Thirty”.  It’s obvious she has a non-con kink.​

  199. 199.

    sab

    @NotMax: Alchohol is not a good remedy for depression, since it is also a depressant.

    I thought Peter Duel was a huge loss not just to his family but in general. So talented. So charismatic. Hollywood certainly does eat its own.

  200. 200.

    Geminid

    Monte Walsh (1970) is set in Arizona around the turn of the 20th century, and is all about the changes coming to western life. Lee Marvin and Jack Palance play cowboys trying to adjust to a new world with railroads and corporate-owned ranches.

           Monte Walsh was remade in 2003 with Tom Sellick and Keith Carradine taking the place of Marvin and Palance. Isabella Rosselini plays the role of Martine Bernard, played in the original movie by Jeanne Moreau. I’ve only seen the remake, and I thought it was pretty good, with beautiful scenery. This version is set in Montana, and was filmed in Alberta, Canada.

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